Nine Street Cars With Engines Originally Designed For Racing

Engines designed for racing are quite different than those built for street use. The former lives its life near the redline for hours at a stretch, where the latter has to deal with the grind of commuting. That's why street cars with proper racing engines are as rare as they are special.

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Ferrari F50

Ferrari never raced the F50, but its engine is a derivation of the V12 that powered Alain Proust's F1 car and the 333 SP prototype. For the F50, the engine was enlarged to 4.7-liters and bolted directly to the frame, just like a proper F1 car. The F50 wasn't as powerful as its turbocharged predecessor, but its engine was unbelievably characterful.

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2 of 9

Porsche

Porsche 918 Spyder

From its earliest days, Porsche developed tech at the race track and put it in its road cars. The 918 Spyder, which uses the flat-plane V8 from the RS Spyder race car augmented with a hybrid system, is the latest in this long tradition. The 600-hp, 9150-rpm V8 is a masterpiece on its own, but the hybrid system makes it truly great with a combined 887 horsepower.

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BMW

BMW M1, M5 (E28, E34), M6 (E24)

BMW Motorsport's first great project, the 3.0 CSL was a forced to be reckoned with in the mid-1970s. For its first road car, the M1, BMW M developed the M49 engine in the 3.0 CSL into the 3.5-liter M88, which was later used in the M5 and M6. Installing an M88 into the M5 helped establish the template for the super sports sedan.

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Porsche

Porsche 356A Carrera

Nowadays, a "Carrera" badge signifies the most basic Porsche 911, but back in the 1950s, it meant you had something special. For the original Carrera, Porsche installed the Type 547 quad-cam flat-four from the 550 Spyder in a 356A to make a track-ready street car. The motor made 100 horsepower out of just 1.5-liters, an incredible figure for the day. That motor in the 356, along with the 550, 718 and 904, helped establish Porsche's early reputation as a giant killer.

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Chevrolet

Chevrolet Camaro ZL-1

The all-aluminum 427 V8 was originally designed just for Can-Am and Corvette race cars, but a loophole in Chevrolet's special ordering program allowed one dealer to order 50 Camaros equipped with the racing engine. The result was the Camaro ZL-1, a slightly street legal Camaro that likely made more than 500 horsepower.

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Porsche

Porsche 911 GT3 (996/997)

Instead of using a development of its standard flat-six for the 911 GT3, Porsche decided to adapt the 911 GT1's Le Mans-winning, turbocharged flat-six for the street. It removed the turbos of the so-called "Mezger" engine–named for its designer, Hans Mezger–but kept many of the same components from the 911 GT1 and the 962 Le Mans car. The Mezger engine died with the 911 GT3 RS 4.0, but it got a proper send off: That car used a version of the engine found in the 911 GT3 R race car.

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BMW

BMW M3 (E30)

When BMW heard that Mercedes was developing a race car out of the 190E, it got to work beefing up its venerable 3 Series, giving the world the legendary M3. Instead of using a big six-cylinder, BMW's Motorsport division developed a new inline-four based on the M12 turbocharged F1 engine and the M88–itself derived from a racing engine–used in the M1, M5 and M6. The engine, dubbed the S14, made an incredible 235 horsepower from 2.5-liters in the M3 Sport Evolution, the ultimate edition of the final M3.

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Porsche

Porsche Carrera GT

The Carrera GT's engine was never properly raced, but its origins are from the world of motorsports. Porsche originally developed a 3.5-liter V10 for the Footwork F1 team in the early 1990s, but the project was cancelled. Porsche then developed the motor into a 5.5-liter for an LMP1 program that was cancelled to help fund the Cayenne SUV. Once the Cayenne proved a success, Porsche had some extra cash to develop a halo car, so it turned the 5.5-liter into a wailing 5.7-liter, 605 horsepower road car engine for the Carrera GT.

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Jaguar

Jaguar XJ220

The XJ220 was originally intended to receive a different race car engine: the V12 from the Le Mans-winning XJR-9, but that motor was too heavy. In a pinch, Jaguar plucked the V6 from the Metro 6R4 Group B rally car, turbocharged it and briefly held claim to making the fastest car in the world.

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